


II. The Angel of History

by BubblyWashingMachine



Series: Every Little Hurt Counts [febuwhump 2021] [2]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse angst, Creepy The Handler (Umbrella Academy), FebuWhump2021, Febuwhump, Gen, Number Five | The Boy Needs A Hug, Number Five | The Boy Whump, POV Outsider, Pre-Series, febuwhumpday2, no i didn't bother rewatching any scenes with dot, prompt is 'i can't take this anymore'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 00:20:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29144340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BubblyWashingMachine/pseuds/BubblyWashingMachine
Summary: On the screen, the little boy simply called ‘Number Five’ struggles to climb a mountain of collapsed rubble to get to the other side. He thinks there might be some surviving cans of food in what used to be a supermarket – Dot already knows there are not. For the third time, he slips on the rocks and tumbles to the bottom, this time slicing his knee open on a piece of pipe as he does so. For the third time, he staggers to his feet anyway and starts to climb once again. She winces.“Resilience is such a valuable trait,” The Handler murmurs reverently, without looking away, her gaze almost frightening in its concentration, and Dot swallows....A conversation, and one brief moment in little Number Five's miserable life, as seen through the eyes of Dot and the Handler.
Relationships: Dolores & Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Number Five | The Boy & The Handler (Umbrella Academy)
Series: Every Little Hurt Counts [febuwhump 2021] [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137428
Comments: 14
Kudos: 88





	II. The Angel of History

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Day two here! This one's nice and bite-sized for your convenience. As appears to be usual for me i haven't really taken the obvious approach to the prompt so it's not really that whumpy but whatever! The Handler is so fun to write
> 
> Walter Benjamin was a real guy and the quote is from an essay of his. Read it and thought oh MAN that's Five right there
> 
> Oh, and on yesterday's fic I got a comment that was really cruel and horrible, hating on allison?? that will not be tolerated and that comment has been deleted. Please use your brain before you go commenting awful things
> 
> Anyway, enjoy this little look into Dot's perspective, and I'll see you tomorrow :)

If one were to ask her, Dot would say that she was _content_ in her job. It certainly wasn’t what she had imagined for herself as a child – no she’d always fancied the idea of being a fashion designer – but she definitely didn’t hate it. A comfy desk job in a well heated building in a bubble of time where every single day was perfectly sunny? Where she was evaluated based on her skill level and not the way she looked?

Well, it was a far cry from the perpetually cold, damp 1918 house where she’d grown up and probably would have died in, if the Commission hadn’t caught a glimpse of her potential and headhunted her. And that was a potential she was _determined_ to live up to, and in the past few years – she was pretty sure it had been about three, but, well, it was hard to keep track in a place like this – she’d worked hard to build herself a reputation as a reliable and hard-working member of the company, to the point where the Handler herself now knows her by name.

Dot is _good_ at her job, and she knows it.

But this?

This is testing her.

“I can’t take this anymore,” she says, covering her eyes with one hand and laughing nervously. She’s only half-joking.

“Quite the picture of misery and suffering, isn’t he?” The Handler says intently, leaning forward eagerly to the screen and sounding utterly delighted. “But just look at him, running around and surviving against all odds. Like a little cockroach.”

“He does seem rather unkillable,” Dot agrees awkwardly, her smile feeling strained. On the screen, the little boy simply called ‘Number Five’ struggles to climb a mountain of collapsed rubble to get to the other side. He thinks there might be some surviving cans of food in what used to be a supermarket – Dot already knows there are not. For the third time, he slips on the rocks and tumbles to the bottom, this time slicing his knee open on a piece of pipe as he does so. For the third time, he staggers to his feet anyway and starts to climb once again. She winces.

“Resilience is such a valuable trait,” The Handler murmurs reverently, without looking away, her gaze almost frightening in its concentration, and Dot swallows. There’s something strange about the Handler. A hungriness. An emptiness. She’s started dropping by almost every day, always wanting to see what Number Five is doing, always curious about his progress, and it reminds Dot of something, but she doesn’t quite know how to give it a name. “Isn’t it astonishing, what desperation will do to a person?”

“He is remarkable,” she says quietly, but she doesn’t really think the Handler is listening.

“Are you familiar with the writings of Walter Benjamin?” her superior asks, and Dot isn’t, but the other woman continues without waiting for an answer. “ _His eyes are staring, his mouth is open, his wings are spread_. _This is how one pictures the angel of history.”_

Dot doesn’t understand, and turns to look at the screen. Number Five pauses for breath, trembling, precariously perched on an unsteady piece of stone.

“ _His face is turned toward the past.”_ The Handler’s voice is light, airy in tone, but the curve of her smile and the glint in her eyes is so predatory and humourless that her words seem filled with darkness. “ _Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe that keeps piling ruin upon ruin and hurls it in front of his feet.”_

Dot watches as the boy seems to gather his strength and pull himself up one more step, sending little rocks cascading down behind him. Though she already knows what is going to happen, she can’t look away, and the Handler continues.

“ _The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from paradise.”_

He finds another foothold and makes it up one more step, and freezes, while his patient mannequin companion waits and two unseen observers watch through a screen with rapt attention. Dot thinks for a second he’s going to fall, but he doesn’t, clinging onto the rocks with a white-knuckled grip.

“ _It has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them.”_

Number Five has made it to the top, and only pauses for a second, sending a blinding and exhausted smile down to the mannequin waiting below, before he starts to make his way down the other side.

The Handler smiles wider, like she never had a doubt, and leans back with her gaze still fixed to the child’s malnourished form as he clambers down the pile, gravity now working in his favour. _“The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.”_

And, just as Dot and her well-documented files already knew would happen from the moment he began the climb, Number Five lands almost gracefully in the dust, and gives himself a moment to bask in his accomplishment.

“Extraordinary,” the Handler breathes, and Dot realises her monologue has reached its end. She’s thankful – she has work to do, calculations to make, for the future is fragile, always with the possibility of change, even this boy’s future. Plus, that was really creepy, even for the Handler.

She wets her lips, looks away and blinks hard. Looking at a screen for so long cannot be good for one’s eyesight. Dot asks the Handler, cautiously, “What if he had died?”

“Died?” The Woman sends her a look of contempt, like the thought is unimaginable. “He’s Number Five. The unkillable boy. He wouldn’t have _died_.” She spits the word out like it tastes bad, like she’s offended, somehow, on Number Five’s behalf.

“Yes, of course,” Dot agrees hurriedly, and titters, mentally kicking herself. “How silly of me to even have thought it. Ridiculous notion, really.”

She can feel the Handler’s eyes on her. “How _silly_ , indeed.”

And then, Dot realises what the Handler is reminding her of. She’s like a very rich man preparing for an upcoming banquet, a luxurious, celebrative occasion. Like the rich man, she has gone to the farmer’s stock and picked out her favourite prize pig, and every day that leads to the occasion of the feast, she comes by to see it, while the pig gets fatter and fatter. And then, one day, when she feels he is finally perfect, she will bring along the butcher.

Suddenly, the Handler rises from where she was perched upon the computer’s dashboard, and brushes her hands down the front of her gorgeous scarlet gown. Dot wishes she had the courage to sport that kind of extravagant look – or the paycheck. “Well, keep up the good work.”

The statement is made for appearances, Dot knows; the handler doesn’t come here because she is monitoring _Dot._ “Will you be recruiting him soon?” She asks, hoping she’s not crossing a line again.

The Handler pauses for a moment and squints at the screen. Then she straightens, and shakes her head, already turning to go. “Give it another decade or two. It’s not like he’s going anywhere!”

The Handler laughs shrilly, and Dot mimics her, raising a hand in a cheerful goodbye until the heavy door eases shut, and the monitor room is empty except for Dot. Her hand falls.

The woman’s harsh laugh – really more of a cackle – sends shivers running down Dot’s spine even after she’s left.

_Right._ No need to dwell on that interaction – she has a job to do. Dot needs to pack up some of her things and take stock before moving on to her daily calculations, and she’s already looking forward to the math. She has always taken comfort in numbers. This whole Number Five thing is just another task, another series of spreadsheets and calculations and meticulous notes. There's no need for her to be making a big fuss over it at all - she just needs some emotional distance to do her best work. It's all just part of her job - and, she reminds herself, she is excellent at her job.

She takes up her coat and files, puts her glasses back in their little case, and signs her name on the sheet that is hung up by the door.

Before she goes back to her desk, Dot risks one last glance at the precious screen where she gets to monitor her project for a few short hours each day, a welcome break from her typewriter, just to make sure everything’s as it should be, and that the timeline is continuing smoothly.

Little Number Five has discovered what Dot knew all along; that all the non-perishables in the supermarket he fought tooth and nail to reach for the better part of a day, are unsalvageable.

He lies collapsed in the ruins of the place, hands pressed to the sides of his head as sluggish blood drips from his injured knee and mingles with the ash, among the mountains of broken shelves, long-rotten food and long-decayed corpses, and he is wailing.


End file.
